Presidential Hotline records high call volumes

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Pretoria - The Presidential Hotline has recorded high call volumes on its second day of operation.

The 17737 toll free hotline, which has been set up so that disgruntled citizens can lodge a complaint about service delivery directly with President Jacob Zuma's office, received over 11 900 calls on Tuesday.

"Call volume was quite high, ranging from 1 100 to about 1 500 an hour. In the last hour 1 158 calls were received.

"The Hotline received 11 959 calls from 6am to 1.30pm; 8001 got through to the welcome message and made their choice of language, while 3 958 did not get through," the Presidency said in a statement.

Of the 8001 calls that came through the welcome message and made language choice, 492 were answered (handled) by the Agents with the remaining 7 509 being abandoned due to high call volumes, the Presidency said.

The Presidency has since urged members of the public who do not get through to the Presidential Hotline the first time, to be patient, as the glitches will be sorted out.

There was also a high prank call and or drop- call rate, due to poor cellular connectivity, in the region of 50 to 60 percent.

Thirty one agents were handling call logging and routing them to the public liaison structures across the country